Freedoms on the Chopping Block

February 1, 2026

This week the Trump Administration is reaching peak overload of horrors—from ominous signs of preparing for war with Iran, to the announcement that the 250^th anniversary of our nation will be celebrated with car racing in the streets of Washington DC.

But let’s focus here on two most alarming threats to democracy: because if the people, the courts, and the Congress don’t do anything about them, our nation will be lost.

First, Trump’s government is trying to trash freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The First Amendment to the Constitution lists five inalienable freedoms; among them, it states quite simply, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Zero ambiguity there! But on Friday the FBI arrested Don Lemon three other independent journalists; Lemon’s arrest stemmed from an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church, where he and Georgia Fort had been reporting. They charged Lemon and Fort with several civil rights crimes, when they were doing their jobs as journalists.  

You have to ask what country you’re living in when journalists are arrested for newsgathering and reporting to the public. The Constitution mentions just one occupation in that First Amendment, because the founding fathers understood how crucial the press, with its duty to inform the public, is to democracy.  With these arrests, The Administration is aiming to intimidate and silence journalists. When the public’s right to know is violated in this way, there can be no democracy.

Without a free press, we would have nothing but the lies and evasions of Trump & Co.  There would be no correcting Noem’s and Bovino’s accounts of domestic terrorist Renee Good running over an officer, Alex Pretti’s drawing his gun to shoot ICE agents, and Ilhan Omar’s arranging to have herself sprayed with a noxious liquid.   Read Orwell’s 1984 again, folks, to understand what it looks like when information is twisted and censored to suit the regime. Or just go to Russia or North Korea.

That is what this administration is aspiring to with these outrageous arrests, with the recent censorship of 60 Minutes and other self-censorship by the news industry--unless we fully understand what’s at stake and fully say NO.  Why did they go after Don Lemon in particular? Hundreds of journalists have been in Minnesota covering the ICE crackdown, so why him? He’s famous, and as an independent he doesn’t have a large news corporation to back him up with teams of lawyers.

But also, and obviously, all four of the journalists who were arrested are black. And Lemon is gay, too. Good racist red meat to toss to Trump loyalists. And perhaps they thought that white people wouldn’t feel as threatened by the persecution of black journalists. Well, they’re wrong, and we must defend the right to a free press as well as our right to free speech, or we’ll lose those fundamental rights.

The other development we should all know about is that the White House plans to send ICE to conduct raids at or near polling locations, scaring citizens into staying home during elections. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy says, “You have to see what’s happening: Trump is trying to create a pretext to rig the election. It stands to reason that this private police force that he’s building is, in part, to be used to try to suppress turnout in the election.”

Of course the White House has replied that all ICE would do is ensure that illegal aliens aren’t anywhere near polling places. But we know that US citizens are hiding in their own homes during the indiscriminate and chaotic ICE crackdowns in Minnesota, Maine, and elsewhere, and deploying ICE near voting places would prevent those citizens as well from exercising their legal right to vote.

We know that the FBI just seized the ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, presumably to re-litigate that dead horse. State election officials no longer have any idea where those ballots are, if they still exist. Further, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Gov. Walz in Minnesota demanding he turn over the state’s voter rolls if he wants ICE to leave his state. MAGA’s campaign to rig the midterm election is already under way, and it must be stopped.

So what do we do as we watch our nation descend into autocracy? The fundamental freedoms of the press and of speech, and the right to free and fair elections, are the bedrock of democracy.   It’s not optional, folks: We have to hit the phones with urgency and with one voice. Every one of us has to call the offices of Washington’s attorney general Nick Brown, and Kitsap county auditor Paul Andrews, to tell them to do what it takes to ensure fair primaries and unhindered elections.  

It’s great to show up at rallies, wear paperclips, and circulate memes online. But please, call our state attorney general, our county auditor, our US senators and representatives, and our state senators and representatives, and leave no doubt that we count on them to do everything possible to keep our electoral system democratic, free from interference, intimidation, and manipulation.   Meanwhile, stay informed and flexible, educate others, take to the streets like the brave souls of Minneapolis, and take care of one another.

Because when we fight, we win!